I’ve just finished reading a terrific historical novel, Los Hijos de Ogaiz (The Children of Ogaiz), spanning nearly a quarter of a century of tumultuous events in 14th-century Navarre, by Toti Martinez de Lezea, who lives in a small town near Bilbao.

Revolts against the French rulers, famine, a genocidal anti-Jewish pogrom, the Black Death and much more are seen through the eyes of two warring families on opposite sides of the ethno-political divide.

I cannot understand why no English translations of her books are available, as I am sure they would attract a big following.

This was my second, after El Verdugo de Dios (God’s Executioner), which deals with mass burnings at the stake of Cathars, condemned as heretics by the Roman Catholic Church, through the eyes of a master stonemason forced to flee from Champagne to Navarre after the his family are slaughtered.

But he is forced to confront the ghosts of his past in flesh and blood when the papist monster who ordered their horrendous deaths in the name of Catholic orthodoxy turns up in Navarre years later.